In today's Web and Cloud computing infrastructures there is a growing desire to be able to monitor and show a user's response to Web content, advertising, and the like.
There is increasing sensitivity about the privacy of individual users. That is, detailed knowledge of a person's response to Web media or content can constitute an invasion of personal privacy. Thus, while it may be technically possible to obtain such data, it would be unpopular, if not legally or ethically problematic, for marketing and advertising professionals to do this outside of controlled environments and focus groups.
Some protection of a user could be achieved using an “anonymity network” which hides the originating user's IP address and location from the recipient using a secure peer-to-peer network on top of the standard Internet. Unfortunately such an approach is easily circumvented by creating unique URLs for each user to access a website. Thus the content provider has only to match this unique URL with a set of “user reaction data” and they can determine individual reactions. Most Web servers can trace the IP address where they sent Web data. If that Web data is unique, a user can be linked with an IP address when “user reaction data” is returned together with the URL being viewed.